According to the report, “the U.S. rate of firearm-related homicide is higher than that of any other industrialized country: 19.5 times higher than the rates in other high-income countries.”



Wow, 19.5 times higher. That sounds like a lot. Wonder why you left that out? I guess the NRA doesn't want you to focus on that number...

like I said, there are facts to support both sides of the issue. I choose the ones I did because many here dispute them.

I wonder why the poster did so.... I wonder.....

I think that covers it...

Interesting for a host of of the anti-gun group.

Is that some kind of personal call-out?

just pointing out a fact that this group has many people who have it listed as a favorite. So are you saying the other poster is a "gun troll"?

your narrative. Very disingenuous, sir.

we know that gun violence is too high. Lets settle on some facts that we can use to formulate a response.

So much so, you posted the same identical misleading post elsewhere.

I was assuming that people would read the linked article and even the report itself before attacking. I guess I was wrong.

disingenuous selective presentation of their key conclusions and findings.

so far your argument seems to consist of nothing more than a personal attack on me.

Why not calm down, read the report, and come back to rationally discuss the issue? Lets find some common ground.

Such tactics are not those worthy of debate.

and I notice you have yet to actually address the issues I did choose to present.

All in all, you have done nothing to address what the CDC actually said. You have to learn to accept facts that do not agree with your positions.

Creative editing to illustrate one aspect of a multifaceted problem is certainly much too weak to be considered nefarious.

and label them NRA talking points. Now they are CDC talking points so I thought people might want to at least talk about them. Apparently not.

Here's a key section for those who don't have the time to read it :

It paints quite a different picture when taken as a whole.

the OP argues for a lower figure.

dismiss it as bogus and not even say it.

that is still a substantial number, especially since many here say defensive gun use is a myth. The CDC certainly does not view it as a myth.

relatively realistic one.

500,000 still implies that only about 1 in 1,666 defensive gun uses results in death..... that's still an awful low probability....

Even 100,000 means well under 1% of defensive gun uses results in the death of the perpetrator.

as for defensive gun uses resulting in death, wouldn't you expect a low number? First of, handguns are not particularly lethal so you would expect many more people wounded vice killed. But more importantly, most defensive gun uses do no involved actually shooting someone - in many cases the sight of a gun is enough for a felon to flee.

Most don't even involve firing a shot at all, the mere presence of the gun changes the balance of power and the aggressor rethinks and flees or is held at gunpoint.

I responded to plenty of cases where a gun was used defensively- only a handful involved a person being shot, none died.

Do you think 1 in 10,000 (this is almost an incomprehensibly large number / low probability) or 1 in 1,666 or 1 in 400?

If I may ask are you involved in police or fire or EMT and have you personally been to 400 (let alone 1,666 or 10,000) incidents where a gun was involved?

I was a sheriffs deputy, in a mostly rural NC county- but responding just in areas outside city limits as the various PDs handled inside city limits unless we went as backup.

I probably responded to or had happen on my shift something between that 400 and 1666.

That number will of course depend on just how you define defensive use of a gun. Some are clear, others may not count depending on your definition.

When I started working domestic violence I had cases a few times a month where a spouse had fled or moved in with family or friends and thier abuser showed up and was run off or detained by someone with a gun. Only one was actually shot, he lived.

Once a week (~4 times a month) would take 100 months (over 8 years) to get to 400 defensive gun use incidents, and over 400 months (pushing 40 years) to get to 1,666. And that's with you working the type of cases that are high probability of gun use, ie domestic violence. In my view, unless you are involved in situations like that (another would be if you had a drug addict living in the house and he had drug addict friends) or of course, you are a police officer... your probability of needing to use a gun in self defense is next to nill. It can happen of course, but all kinds of rare things happen; people get struck by lightning too - it's just extremely rare.

I would say that at least in my area it would likely be that the degree of defensive uses that involve guns would have a ratio of perp shot/not shot that is greater than 1/400, much less killed.

The vast, vast majority of calls where someone used a gun defensively the gun is never fired. Most where shots are fired nobody is hit.

So 1/400 defensive uses resulting in death seems way unlikely in my experience, unless some areas of the country are way, way off to the opposite end of the spectrum.

depend on what is defined as defensive use.

There are people out there who think pointing a gun at kids retrieving a ball out of your yard is defensive use and those that think you have to retreat in your own home from a burglar and take all other measures first before even pointing the gun, let alone firing it.

A lot of out calls that involved gun use were dispatched something like this:

Person hears noise, somebody is attempting to enter their home. Homeowner grabs gun, announces they are home and armed, doesn't go out to confront. Attempted intruder retreats, homeowner stays inside until we arrive.

They did use a gun, can't say for sure if it was the announcement they had a gun or just the alerting of their presence that deterred the prowler, but either way it was there but not fired.

Other common one was the same but homeowner sees/hears somebody outside attempting to break into a car/shed/barn. They arm themselves going to investigate, prowler flees. Kind of a gray area, but they were relying on the firearm to help deter/stop a crime and also to help deter the thief from assaulting them as they did so. I could debate the wisdom of this course of action by people, seeing it both ways, but regardless it is common.

Pretty common for either, even in rural areas. Almost always the same 1-2% of folks well known to us who were out stealing, much of it was meth related.

the mere presence of a person catching him is what deters / makes him run away, not the fear of a gun or knife.

He's never been shot at or had someone brandish a gun at him.

If he was ever scared away by the owner with a gun he didn't see it, though the owner could claim it was a self defensive use of a gun.

Facts aren't allowed if they don't fit the view the anti-gun extremists want to promote.

what I am hoping is that we can have gun discussions using the same data. There are many here that deny that gun violence is decreasing, or believe that defensive gun use is a myth. Some also believe that mass killings are common and increasing. I was hoping that by using CDC data we can at least reach a consensus on basic facts regarding gun violence and have a more nuanced discussion beyond "fuck the NRA, fuck gun humpers, gunz are evil". We will see.

The CDC commissioned the report.

The article in the OP does not include citations to the quotes and makes it damned near impossible to find the context of the quotes. Think "Gish Gallop."

The conclusions the author of the article makes are stated as fact that obscure the nuances and subtleties presented in the actual report. Call it lazy or call it dishonest; either way, it is incomplete and inaccurate.

The author of the article also left out the discussions in the report that looked at individual, societal, community, and situational factors that may contribute to gun violence; as well as economic and health issues.

Also, when I click a link to an OP with the subject line that includes "the latest from the CDC," I expect to see something from the CDC and not from Slate. For myself, I would request you provide links to reports and/or studies along with any editorials "reporting" the results of a report. But, that is my preference and others may not care.


" I was hoping that by using CDC data we can at least reach a consensus on basic facts regarding gun violence and have a more nuanced discussion"

Your objective could have been better met had you included the facts and nuance from the report rather than those distilled through a reporter.

for example, does it point out any areas that require more attention over others?

you wanted to discuss this based on facts.

First the facts must be present; that requires the inclusion of the report containing said facts. I brought that here.

Unfortunately, the facts in the report are not being discussed here due to the diversion of the debate produced by the article you linked.

Now I see I was wrong to take you at your word. Again, my apologies.

Have fun in your...debate.

It appears as if research, data, science and logic are only popular when they provide answers we want. I'm shocked to see how many posters here are attempting to ignore real data because it doesn't fit their Narrative.

The article linked leaves out large swaths of the report including variables to be addressed and researched as well as context for the quotes.

We should be ashamed.

and it continues to decline. More to the point, gun violence is steadily going down. Yes, it needs to be lower. But we are on the right path.

I just looked up the gun figures. In 2010 over 20,000 were killed by guns. And over 76,000 were treated in ER for gunshot wounds.

Doesn't sound too good to me.

Which, while tragedies, has nothing to do with how safe America is. Yes, we can reduce violence further - do you have any suggestions?

That's pretty terrible in itself.

How many of those people would have lived if there hadn't been a gun handy? Hard to say.

I just looked up the homicides in Kansas City for 2013. There were 106. That figure hasn't changed much over time. Other big cities have seen a decline of about 15.9.

Especially in cities.

...but it's hard to deny the data CDC collected.

Hack, what's your secret? How'd you get this in GD (Guns Damned)?